Justification
by That Sunflower Chick
Summary: Why Raph does what he does... Rating is for gore and a little rude language. I do not own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They are the property of Nickelodeon, Viacom, and other people who are not me.


Raphael lay in the silent darkness, listening, but his own quickened breath was the only sound. Maskless, padless, weaponless, he shook his head, trying to chuck out the dream. He had it every now and then. Lots of times. Too many times. Gritting his teeth, he flung the rest of the dream out of his head and sat up.

He wondered if anyone else was awake. Judging by the lack of sound, he guessed they weren't. He figured he might as well go check. Not that he was checking _on_ them. No. He just felt restless, felt like pacing. If he paced toward his brothers' rooms and happened to notice they were safe, well then, fine.

Using the ninja stealth he'd studied all his life, Raph crept through the lair. His pair of _sai_ sat ready in the weapon belt that had somehow found its way around his waist. He left it there, just in case.

In the doorway of Donatello's room, Raph stopped, peered in, and listened. Donnie lay bathed in the light of his monitor, his mouth slightly open. "Wow, April! Is that a new dress?" he said, a stupid grin spreading over his face.

Raph rolled his eyes. He definitely didn't want to hear the rest of _that_ dream conversation. But as he walked away, he allowed himself a wish for his brother: _She's a great girl, and you deserve her, man. Hope she falls for you. _Would he ever tell Donnie that? Hell no.

The next room was Leonardo's. Raphael considered his brother's form for a moment; Leo seemed to be breathing evenly. Raph snorted, forgetting for a second to be quiet. Leo really looked like an awesome leader with all that drool on his pillow. He headed down the hall with another thought he'd never voice: _Master Splinter chose the right guy to lead us, Chief. _Raph was no longer really interested in leading the team. Now he just wanted to beat the crap out of all the people and creatures who needed it. And there were plenty of them.

Michelangelo's room was empty. Raph blinked into the darkness, pushing down a cold, uncomfortable feeling the others might have called _fear_. But it wasn't that, because he was Raphael, and that didn't happen to him.

Running out into the den area, Raph found Mikey on his stomach in the pit, half a slice of pizza lying on top of his head. The pizza rose and fell slowly to the same rhythm as soft snores. Raph released a deep breath. It wasn't a relieved sigh—no way—just the product of running around the lair holding his breath.

"What a freakin' dork," Raph whispered, pulling the pizza from Mikey's head and tossing it to the floor. Glancing around to make sure no one else had gotten up, Raphael grabbed a blanket from one of the nearby benches and covered his smallest brother, patting his shell gently before he stood up and turned to leave.

Back in his own room, Raphael checked on a deeply slumbering Spike, and realized there was no point trying to go back to sleep. A few last strands of the dream clung to his mind like cobwebs, and he really didn't feel like dealing with it again. _Sai_ still at his waist, he stealthed to the _dojo_.

Unsheathing both _sai_, he admired the gleam of their blades under what little moonlight filtered down through the branches of the immense tree growing through the floor and ceiling. He began a one-sided fight; whirling and slashing and stabbing with the sai, leaping and flipping through the air to land on invisible opponents, releasing no _kiai _to avoid waking anyone up. He wasn't training; he wasn't going through his forms; he was exercising to relieve stress, of course. It felt good to move those bulky muscles around. Raph cracked his neck and grinned.

Wiping sweat from his forehead, he sat cross-legged on the _dojo_ floor, his _sai_ in front of him. He closed his eyes. This wasn't meditation. That was what Lame-o-nardo did. This was resting for a moment—just resting.

The dream itched at the corner of his brain, but Raph scratched it away with a memory.

_ They'd all been ten years old, but Mikey seemed much younger. Donnie seemed a bit younger, sometimes, too, even if he could think circles around the rest of them. Some people might have found it strange how the four of them had fallen into the roles of big brothers and little brothers and in-between-brothers even though they were all the same age, but it had come naturally to them. _

_ A sound from Leo's room caught Raph's attention, and he stomped over, sulking, and threw open the closed door without knocking. "Hey, what are you guys doing in here?"_

_ Leo, Donnie, and Mikey looked up, their eyes wide. _

"_Oh, look—it's Mr. Grounded-for-Losing-His-Temper-Again. You better get back in your room before _sensei_ finds out," Leo said._

"_It's boring in there." Raph moved further into the room. "Come on, what are you looking at?"_

"_It's the reason we can't ever leave the sewer. You don't wanna see it." Donnie moved to block Raph's view of the laptop._

It was the second one Donnie had built—by age ten! Raph marveled at the memory.

"_That's pretty stupid. Why wouldn't I wanna see it? It's gotta be better than sitting on my butt in there."_

"_Ok, but it's really scary." Leo frowned at him, trembling. "Remember, you asked for it. Go ahead and show him, Donnie." _

That was Leo, leading them even then.

_With an uncertain glance at Leo, Donnie hit a few buttons on the laptop. "Master Splinter told me if we ever leave here, the humans up above will send us to a science lab. A real science lab! It sounded great, so I looked a few up." _

_ The laptop's screen filled with images of animals: mice, rats, rabbits, others. Humans were sticking long needles into some of them. Some of them had wires coming out of their exposed brains. One of the rats had been dissected, splayed and bloody._

_ Raph's stomach lurched. Slapping both hands over his mouth, he managed to avoid puking. "Donnie," he said, when he recovered, "I thought you said science was awesome."_

_ Donnie looked sick too. "I did! It is! Well, most of it. These are pictures from a news story about one of the bad labs. An unethical one."_

_ "But there are lots of bad labs that would love to stick us in a cage and study us. Plus, people would probably be afraid of us, and they would tell the lab people to come and get us. So we have to listen to Master Splinter. We can't go up there." Leo crossed his arms._

_ Mikey's eyes filled with tears. "I'm scared. Donnie, make the pictures go away!" He attached himself to Leo, seizing him with both arms and burying his freckled face in his brother's shoulder. _

Raph still remembered reaching out, suddenly wanting to hug Mikey and tell him not to be afraid.

_ Donnie frantically poked a few buttons on the laptop. The images of tortured animals disappeared, but were replaced with a montage of news photos showing human murder victims. Gore and horror filled the screen. Mikey looked up at the laptop and away again, wailing. Clutching his stomach, Leo yelled at Donnie, who burst into tears and apologized for hitting the wrong buttons before he slammed the laptop shut._

_ Raphael took in the whole chaotic scene: his brothers, sickened, crying, and terrified. And then he made a decision. _

_He would never show them his fear, never show them his sadness, because it would only add to theirs. He would show them only anger, because it was the only emotion that really had any purpose. He could use it to fuel his energy, his power, his _chakra_, his training, his fighting. He could make fighting his only reason for being. If he did, he could protect them from evil science labs and murderers, and his brothers would know no one could beat him. They would know he would never fall, would never let anyone hurt them. They would know they could rely on him to win every fight, and they would feel safe—always. Except maybe from him, but he didn't see that as a problem, really. Smacking them around would toughen them up._

_ He forced a nasty grin onto his face as he pushed aside nausea. "You're right—you losers _are_ more boring than just sitting in my room. That was really lame." He'd stomped out, then, and had gotten caught by Splinter, but he hadn't really cared. He'd made his decision._

_Raphael had decided, at that moment, to become the meanest, baddest mofo he was capable of becoming._

Releasing a long, controlled breath, Raph let the scene fade back into memory and opened his eyes.

Someone was right next to him, close, in the dark.

Ripping both _sai_ from the floor, he flipped sideways and spun to face the enemy.

Master Splinter sat there, head slightly tilted, calmly watching him. "A quick recovery from your meditative state, my son. But why are you awake so late?"

Raph immediately dropped to his knees, sitting on both feet, before his _sensei_. He slammed the _sai_ to the floor, blades pointed away from Splinter. "Leo meditates, Master Splinter. I just plan whose butt to kick next."

Did one side of Splinter's mouth turn slightly up? In the dim light, Raph couldn't be sure.

"Hmmm. Indeed. But you have not answered my question."

"I just had this dream that bugged me, okay? It's no big deal." Raph's eyes left his _sensei's_, and he examined his _sai_ on the floor. They were looking a little dull. He would sharpen them tomorrow.

"Very well, then, Raphael," said Splinter. "But you should probably go back to bed now and rest while you can. I will wake you for training in three hours."

Raph blinked. "_Hai_, _sensei_." He sheathed his _sai_ and returned to his room. Dropping the _sai_ belt to the floor, he lay down, uncovered, weaponless, wide-eyed, replaying the dream he'd had earlier.

_Shredder raised bloody blades and hacked at Donnie's face; one blade plunging into an eyeball, another turning his throat into a red fountain. Flinging away Donnie's lifeless body, Shredder turned toward Leo's attack, slamming his swords out of his grasp and carving Leo out of his shell with two quick swipes of his knife-covered hands. Shredder stood over the dying Leo, laughing as he watched wet red organs spill from the catastrophic wound that had once been Leo's back. Screaming, Mikey swung his sickle-bladed _kusurigama _at Shredder. The weapon bounced uselessly off his armor, and Shredder laughed again. Plunging the blades of his left hand into Mikey's throat and lifting him, Shredder ripped Mikey's plastron open from neck to groin with his right. Blood sprayed as the light in those bright blue eyes faded, and Splinter's laugh echoed in Raph's head—_

No. No way. Raphael wrapped his blanket and his arms around himself. It was only a dream. It would never happen. It wouldn't. He would protect his brothers. Always. They could rely on him to win every fight, because he was Raphael.

_I love you guys, _he almost whispered, in the dark.

Almost.


End file.
